Before you start removing the oxygen you should put a few bay leaves in all the food as soon as you buy it, no eggs will hatch out if you do this and it won't change the flavor of the food.

I use 1/2 gallon canning jars for my grains and add the leaves, cooking directions inside the jar if need and then use the vacuum part of my Kenmore vacuum food saver with the canning lid vacuum, it works great.

I am aware that many of the things we buy may very well have bugs or their waste matter in them. I grew up on a farm but I just have the idea of a bunch of bugs crawling around in my foodstuffs before I even get to use them.

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In that case I don't think I will be very inclined to eat anything made with that food. For example, one day I had some corn meal mix and when I opened the package, there were a lot of black bugs - small ones - but none the less bugs, and I know they were living in my box of corn meal mix, leaving behind and all around lots of little droppings which I maybe could not even see because of the movement of the bugs in the corn meal. But all living things eat - thus the bugs were surely eating the corn meal, and where did the waste go that all living creatures produce?

Now days I eat Grits and I do not see any bugs, and therefore no waste products either. I am sure there could have been some in there somewhere but maybe it is a matter of "out of sight, out of mind".

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When and if I see something in my Grits, they will have to go also. If I have to, I will eat just eggs or something else with the eggs, until such time as the little specks start moving around in there too before I cook them.

I had a friend who worked in the restaurant of one of the big department stores on 5th Avenue in NY. One time she found a lot of bugs rummaging around in the flour she was going to make something with. When she asked the head of the Kitchen what to do about all the bugs, she was told "Take out as many as you can". Yeah-right. It bothered her and when she told me, I never wanted to eat anything in that store's restaurant. If she had not told me I probably would have eaten the pie or whatever and said, "My, that was good pie!" but knowing about the bugs was enough for me. Are they right when they say: "What you don't know can't hurt you?" Dawei

When I buy flours or grains I first put them in the freezer for a few days to kill anything that might potentially hatch out. Then your flour will last awhile, provided you put it in an airtight container like tupperware, etc. but if you see any critters at all in your flours/grains, throw it out or take it back to the store; it is old. All grains have unhatched critters and bug parts in them; my ex-husband who works for the health dept. said, "do you think everything jumps out of the way when the harvesting machine comes?" so don't worry about that, it is part of life.